


Fiddling While Rome Burns

by HolyGrailWarGM (RavenkinLegacy)



Series: FATE AD/2021 [1]
Category: Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-02-05 12:12:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12794310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenkinLegacy/pseuds/HolyGrailWarGM
Summary: Reines Archisorte, Lord El Melloi III, thought that her family’s involvement in the Holy Grail Wars was over.  But when an old friend comes calling with news of something suspicious, Reines finds herself in the midst of a mad scramble to set up a deadly game of chess between a reliable team of her own and an unknown rival operating in the shadows.(A/N:  Mostly abandoned for now.  Sorry folks!)





	Fiddling While Rome Burns

**Author's Note:**

> From September 2016 to June 2017, five people played through the Holy Grail War of Rome in a tabletop RPG. This is the setup to the story that we built.

_Thursday, June 3 rd, 2021_

_Time:  0930_

_Location:  Mages Association Clock Tower, London, England_

 

Unlike so many of the technophobes at the Clock Tower, Reines El-Melloi Archisorte is quite comfortable surrounding herself with contemporary technology.  In fact, when the phone on her desk rings, she is tapping away at the keyboard on her sleek new ultra-light laptop.  It is not the prospect of the phone itself that gives her pause, but the message displayed on the glowing screen:  ORIGIN UNKNOWN.

 _That_ , she thinks, _is not supposed to happen_.

When Reines installed that phone several years ago, she did so herself.  She told her colleagues that she did it to fully understand its setup and capabilities, but as always, that was not the entire truth.  The truth was that with as many rivals as she has made over the years, she wanted to take every precaution to secure her private office.  Just because _most_ magi avoided technology like the plague did not means she was completely safe from such an avenue of attack.  If anything, it gave her cause to be even more careful.  After all, most magi who could bring themselves to use telephones would probably still lack the knowledge to check for things like monitoring devices.  If she is being honest with herself, it was only thanks to some recent allies that Reines herself considered the possibility and began to take the precautions that she did.

Installing her own phone gave her the chance to place a few necessary enchantments in it, including a tracking spell that she needed to renew every few months.  That spell should be kicking in now, picking up and displaying the origin of any phone number from any location in the entire world.  The desk calendar propped up by the phone informs her that she did in fact renew the spell two days ago, just as she was scheduled to.

And still the display reads:  ORIGIN UNKNOWN.

Reines glares at the phone for a few more rings, as though her irritation alone is enough to solve the mystery.  When that fails to produce any effect, she heaves a sigh, leans forward to rest her elbows on the desk, and touches the screen.

“You almost certainly have the wrong number,” she tells the mystery caller in a voice full of the false warmth that one may use with an impatient child, “but if you tell me who you are, I may be able to help correct that.”

She has no intention of doing so, but Reines learned a long time ago that there is no reward in base rudeness.

For a long moment, there is no answer.  Only the steadily increasing call time on the glowing screen assures her that the caller has not hung up.  When the voice finally speaks, something about it tickles a memory at the back of her mind.

“Reines, child, I am surprised you even picked up.  It is good to hear your voice again.  It has been too long.”

The voice is an old, feminine tenor, soft but not meek, with an Eastern European accent that Reines found difficult to place on a map.  The tickling sensation grows more persistent, a name just out of reach.

Her gaze scans the rest of her office as she struggles to place how she knows the caller.  The office is sparsely decorated, but perhaps something there will jog her memory.  Bookshelves full of texts on summoning, treatises she has read time and again… Awards and honors praising her family and her own accomplishments… A curio cabinet full of gifts, trinkets from past alliances and the few people she calls friends…

There:  a memory, just as she had hoped:

_“Excuse me, child.  Is anyone sitting here?”_

_Fifteen years ago.  Reines had just met the man who would become her step-brother.  It was her third semester at the Clock Tower; this was Professor Belfaban’s advanced course on spirit summoning.  She looked forward to whatever the eccentric old department head had to offer.  She had been organizing her notebooks on the table when the classmate approached her._

_Even at that young age, Reines understood that it was impolite to stare.  Yet stare she must, at this elderly woman with the almost-German accent, carrying the class textbook and a stack of notebooks of her own in her arms.  She is dressed in a brightly colored cardigan, corduroy trousers, and sensible sneakers, giving her the most casual appearance of anyone in the room, perhaps on the entire campus.  Her hair was pulled back from her face in a smart ponytail and a beaded chain with outstandingly thick reading spectacles hung around her neck.  She smiled down at Reines, patience written all over her ancient face._

_The young woman recovered quickly and offered a saccharine smile before returning to organizing her notebooks.  “You’re sitting here now, provided you don’t try to peek at my exams.”_

_The old woman chuckled and slid into the seat with more grace than Reines expected.  “I will try to contain myself.  Although if you are very good at this subject, I may ask you to help me study.”_

_“We’ll see,” Reines answered._

_The two sat in silence for a few moments before Reines sneaked another peek at her companion.  The woman had lifted her spectacles to her nose, dislodging another bit of ornamentation from her cardigan in the process:  a Christian cross made of gold._

_Surprise makes one forget manners quite easily; it was not until the old woman chuckled again that Reines realized she had been staring.  She was suddenly glad for her own glasses, specially constructed to conceal the red glow of her Mystic Eyes in the presence of magic items._

_“You have never seen a Church woman before?”  The lady asks in a voice free from mockery._

_Reines could hear the capitalization in the question, and decided to answer honestly: “Not in person.”  She thought for a moment, then added, “I admit I’m less worried about you cheating off me now.”_

_The Church woman laughed then, a hoarse but joyful sound.  “It pleases me to hear that my people still have some good left in our reputation!”_

_Reines smiled back, then stuck out her hand.  “My name is Reines Archisorte.  And yours?”_

_The woman took her young hand in her frail one, patting rather than shaking it.  “Pleased to meet you, child.  I’m—”_

“Shura Reesen,” Reines replies, the warmth in her voice turned genuine.  “It has been too long.  The last time I heard from you was maybe seven years ago.  How was your holiday in Germany?”

Shura’s chuckle comes through the phone, sounding no older than she did when they first met.  “Was it that long ago?  When you get to my age, child, it all starts to blend together.”  She pauses for a moment, then says, “Now that you mention it, it must have been about that long.  That was when your brother…”

“Yes,” Reines says curtly.

“I am sorry, child.”

“It’s alright,” Reines lies.  “What did you want to talk about?”

Shura’s tone turns serious.  “Unfortunately, this is not a social call.  There is a problem, Reines, and I suspect that you will want to look into it.”

Shura is many things, Reines knows, but an alarmist is not one of them.  Her tone is grim and careful and it immediately sets Reines’s nerves on edge.

“What’s going on?” she asks.

“Is this line secure?”

Reines hesitates.  It must be very serious indeed, if ink-and-parchment Shura is concerned about security.  “It is, but give me a moment to secure the room.”

She stands from her desk and paces a path around the office, activating another recently installed spell.  This one chokes the sound coming out of the room and bestows an air about the whole place that makes it seem fundamentally uninteresting to an outside observer.  It is the closest she can get to true privacy in the Clock Tower without arousing suspicion even further.

With the spell activated, Reines returns to her desk.  She picks up the phone, taking it off speaker mode and bringing the handset to her ear.  “Alright,” she says, “let’s hear it.”

“I have reason to believe that the leylines in Rome have been tampered with.  Evidence points to intelligent involvement.  I fear that something terrible may be on the horizon.”

Reines sits with this declaration for a moment.  She has always appreciated Shura’s directness, but this kind of claim is something that requires careful consideration before action.  Leylines are not easy to disturb; there is only one thing that Reines can think of that would have the power to do so, and she is not eager to contemplate the possibility of another Holy Grail ritual.

So instead of jumping to that conclusion, Reines asks, “What is your evidence?”

The evidence that Shura presents is indeed compelling.  She speaks of the flow of mana changing and effecting unusual weather patterns throughout Italy.  Once potent holy ritual areas have seen their supply of power diminished.  Magi and priests alike have found their dowsing rods and staves in need of recalibration.  It quickly becomes clear that Shura is not talking about simple excess siphoning of the World’s energy, but a complete override of the layout of the lines.

 _That,_ Reines thinks again, _is definitely not supposed to happen._

“Even if all this is true,” Reines interrupts her finally, “you still haven’t told me why you think there is intelligent involvement.  It could just be a magical paradigm shift.  That would be odd, but no cause for such concern as you suggest.”

On the other end of the line, Shura sighs.  “I knew you would be skeptical, child.  I am glad for that tendency.  But I am concerned, and it is justified.”  She pauses, then says, “The flow is being directed toward the Vatican.”

“What does that matter?” Reines asks, feigning ignorance.

“I fear that space cannot handle the quantity of mana being directed to it.  This is not a natural shift, Reines.”

Reines feels a flash of irritation.  “With respect, why can’t your people take care of it?”

“You know the Executors,” Shura replies, sounding wearier than Reines has ever heard her sound.  “They prefer retaliation over prevention.  They will not act until something terrible has already happened.  But I fear then it will be too late.  I would investigate it myself, but for my doctrinal differences barring me from certain privileges, even within the Order.”

Reines understands.  Denominations in the Church, she knows, are like factions in the Mages Association:  being part of the wrong one will block access to certain resources, alliances, and even physical spaces.  Shura keeps to the "Lutheran" denomination, which she tells Reines is a source of conflict in the "Catholic" dominated Church.  Reines made sympathetic noises when the topic came up; even without any background knowledge, she can easily understand such problems, given her own family's factional history.  Still, she chafes at the idea of getting terribly involved with what seems to be the Church’s problem.

Shura waits for a moment, then says more gently, “I know that you know what I fear.  I know that you fear it too.  But there are few things in this world that can effect such a powerful shift as this.  Even if it is not a Holy Grail, it must be something equally as strong.”

“And equally as dangerous in the wrong hands,” Reines agrees.  She sinks back into her desk chair, letting her gaze drift up to the ceiling of her office and follow the patterns painted there.  She is silent for a few moments, then says, “Let us say that I believe you about the effects that you see and the dangers that it poses.  What then?  What would you have me do?”

“Gather combatants,” Shura advises evenly, “and have them attempt the summoning.  Such a phenomenon would only work in the time of a Grail War, would it not?”

“That’s right,” Reines replies, recalling her lessons and her own research.  “Heroic Spirits are too powerful to fully summon without the help of a Grail as an anchor, even with the Servant Class containers.”  Her fingers brush over the hidden drawer on the underside of her desk, the one that contains the research materials she has gathered over the past few years.  She has not touched the contents of that drawer in years.  _After Fuyuki and America, I thought this nightmare was over._

Aloud, she says, “Let me think about it.  I’ll need to do some research, and it will take me some time to decide.  I’ll let you know what conclusion I come to either way.”

“Thank you, child.”  Shura’s reply sounds genuinely full of gratitude.  “I know how difficult it must to face this prospect, especially in your position.  I do not mean to impose upon you, but I truly think that you are the only person who I could turn to.”

“I make no promises,” Reines warns, “only that I will consider it.”

“I understand.”  The older woman sounds infuriatingly confident that Reines will come to Shura’s desired conclusion.  “Go with God, child.”

“You as well, my friend.”

The line goes dead in her hand and Reines carefully seats the headset back onto its cradle.  She rises from her desk and paces across the room to the window.

Outside, the typical London summer weather has finally caught up to them; clouds darken the sky and droplets of rain begin to splash against the glass.  A smattering of brightly colored umbrellas livens up the courtyard below as students and teachers run for shelter from the sudden summer storm.  Some of them huddle together in clumps for cover; many still have not gotten used to the city’s meteorological mood swings.

Reines watches them move, idly marveling at how unprepared they can be for such a common occurrence as a thunderstorm.  Then she turns her gaze to her own reflection and frowns at the parallels.

 _A Holy Grail War is hardly a common occurrence,_ she argues to no one, even as she considers the number of them.  After the Fifth War in Fuyuki, there were at least two in America before the system in Fuyuki was shut down.  With the mastermind of the American Wars dead and the removal of the Greater Grail from Fuyuki, Reines had assumed that everything was over.  Now, though…

 _It’s not as though I have the power to investigate this nonsense,_ she grouches, _or indeed, any more freedom of movement than Shura Reesen herself.  Her trouble only lies in faction division; at least_ she _doesn’t have the entire Clock Tower breathing down her neck!_

Reines twists the El-Melloi signet ring on her right hand.  For the past five years, she has worn it proudly in public, even as she chafes under the circumstances of its passing.  However necessary it was to the survival of the family, the loss of her predecessor – tutor, brother, and oldest friend all in one – piques her still.

Reines shakes her head, clearing away the memories and melancholy, and sighs briskly.  The call from Shura got her wondering who else out there may have access to the blueprints of the Grail War ritual.  With her head-of-household mask back in place, she marches back to her desk and reaches beneath it to the hidden drawer.  She wills her magic circuits to link with the locking enchantment; the drawer clicks open.

The space inside the drawer is much larger than it would appear, thanks to a useful enchantment from her friends at the Red Flower Society.  For a group so uncaring of bloodline and training, they have managed to pick up some of the most talented unallied magi that Reines has ever seen.  The same people who gave her the tips about the phone helped her with that drawer and several other hidden compartments in her office.  _It pays to be friends with magi who are actually connected to the outside world,_ Reines thinks as she rifles through the drawer’s contents.

Among said contents are several stacks of research material:  manila folders full of newspaper clippings, photocopied pages from old tomes, handwritten and typed first-person accounts, and so much more.  As she lays it all out on the desk in front of her, Reines muses that she must look very like a conspiracy theorist.

For the next few hours, Reines immerses herself in the mass of data points spread out over her desk, reading files and mentally replaying the conversations that went along with them.  She focuses in particular on the collected biographical sketches of everyone associated with the Holy Grail Wars, both in Fuyuki and America.  Although the material is all familiar to her now, she looks for loose ends, uncovered ground, anything that might hint at a leak of information.

The first American Grail War took place ten years ago in a small town in the northern part of the state of Pennsylvania.  For Masters, it gathered a number of unaffiliated magi who happened to be living in the town at the time.  The mastermind, a woman named Anastasia Cartwright, found her plans thwarted by the sheer will of the other Masters to survive and protect their town.  She had escaped at the end of the first War, apparently breaking her contract with her Servant to cut her losses and run.  That war had been the beginning of the Red Flower Society, a loose association of unaffiliated magi with the surviving Masters at its core.

Five years after the first American Grail War, around the same time that Lord El-Melloi the Second was proposing to dismantle the Fuyuki Grail, a second American War popped up.  This time, other associations threw their lot in, each hoping for the ultimate prize or at least a piece of the puzzle to unravel the mystery of the Wars.  Cartwright was once again thwarted by the other Masters’ ingenuity and her own overconfidence; this time, they managed to kill her and her allies.  Several of the surviving Masters joined up with the Red Flower Society.

It was then that things became difficult for the Archibald house.  Lord El-Melloi the Second launched his assault on the Fuyuki Grail system, aided by other survivors and allied factions and opposed by practically the entire Mages Association.  He won, but at a terrible cost:  the issuing of a Sealing Designation was always the unspoken worst-case scenario, but Reines still desperately wishes that it had not come to that.

_… rain poured down outside._

_“I’ll be fine,” he told her, lied to her.  He took her hands and kissed her forehead, setting aside their typical frostiness and embracing familial comfort for just a moment.  “We knew that it might end this way.  I’ll be fine.  They’ll never find me.”_

_It was the only time that she had ever cried in front of him…_

Reines shakes off the memory and continues reading.

At around noon, she finds the hole in the story.

After the second American Grail War and the disappearance of her older brother, Reines had taken on the mantle of Lord El-Melloi and worked overtime to pick up new allies, to shore up her house’s position in the Clock Tower.  The Red Flower Society was among the first; they had heard of her predecessor’s efforts and brought these materials to her.  Among the papers were copies of correspondence between Cartwright and several contacts across Europe and Asia.

 _No one ever learned the identities of her co-conspirators,_ Reines thinks.

It had seemed a trivial detail in the midst of everything else that was going on, something easy to overlook.  She can recall a single conversation about the matter, which had been interrupted by something more immediately important arising.  Still, it is a lead.  She pulls out the letters and notes and sets to work.

The letters are mostly in Russian and Italian, and consist almost entirely of apparently mundane content.  But as she reads through them over and over, she begins to see commonalities, the beginnings of a code.  Ciphering and deciphering were never among her strong skills, but she knows enough of the theory to muddle through.

By three o’clock, she has enough evidence to prove that at least one of her correspondents confirmed receipt of something sent to them, which Reines strongly suspects to be a copy of the Grail Ritual.

She sinks back into her chair and stares up at the ceiling.  _This is it, then,_ she thinks, _I’m to be mired in a Holy Grail War again because my self of the past failed to see the signs._

Before her melancholy can set in, her stomach gives a loud rumble in protest of her inadvertent decision to skip lunch and tea.  She groans in response and moves to stand when there is a knock at the door.

The effect on her bearing is immediate:  her spine straightens and her chin lifts.  Gone is the weariness, the hunger, the human weakness that her body possesses and displays.  Gone is Reines Archisorte the woman in her mid-thirties; in her place sits Lord El-Melloi the Third, the tenth head of the Archibald family, ageless and peerless.

“Come in,” she calls.

The door creaks open – _I have got to get that fixed,_ she thinks with a frown – and the visitor shuffles into the room.  A white apron covers a black dress draped loosely on a metallic silver figure, which enters bearing a covered tray.  Trimmau offers her a smile as she kicks the door closed behind her with a dull _thud_.

Reines relaxes immediately at the sight of her liquid metal maid golem.  If Trimmau is surprised by her mistress’s sudden slump back into her chair, she does not show it.  She merely marches up to the desk, the clack of her heels softened by the rug, and holds the tray out to Reines.  Reines sighs with a smile and clears a space on the desk for the maid to set the tray down.

The tray contains both lunch and tea; as Reines picks through its contents, Trimmau moves around the office in her cleaning routine.  She dusts off the windowsills and the curio cabinet, realigns the books on their shelves, adjusts the rug where Reines’s pacing had caused part of it to bunch up.

When Trimmau returns to the desk, she tilts her head in interest and picks up a particular piece of paper.  Reines looks up to find her maid’s gaze fixed on a sheet written in Lord El-Melloi the Second’s handwriting; notes on the variations on the summoning ritual used to bind the Servants in the Holy Grail War.  Trimmau holds the page out to Reines and tilts her head in question.

Reines finishes the bite of food and takes the page from her maid.  “There may be another Holy Grail War on, like the one that he shut down in Japan.”

Trimmau’s silver eyes widen.

“It surprised me too,” Reines admits, “and I didn’t really want to believe it.  But there is enough evidence to give me some concern.”

The maid moves a folder and picks up another sheet.  This one displays an intricate summoning circle, Reines’ predecessor’s own depiction of the circle used to summon Servants.  She holds it up and tilts her head back the other direction, waiting for her mistress to continue.

“I don’t want to get involved,” Reines insists, “not now, not when our house is under so much scrutiny.  I’m afraid, Trim.  I’m afraid that if we get involved in whatever is going on – War or no War – it will look like a power play and the Association will use the excuse to take everything from us.”  She shakes her head even as she takes the sheet that Trimmau holds out.  “We’ve already lost so much.  There’s too much risk.”  She pauses, looks at the papers in her hands.  “But… if there truly is a War on…”

Trimmau circles around to the side of the desk where Reines sits and places a comforting hand on her mistress’s shoulder.  They stare down at the desk in silent solidarity.  Then Reines sighs again and tilts her head back to look up at her maid.

“He would never forgive me if I just sat here and did nothing, would he?”

A flicker of a smile crosses Trimmau’s face, sad but amused.  The maid golem says nothing, but reaches across her mistress to collect the tray again.

Reines groans and fixes her eyes on the ceiling.  “He would hate that I put other magi in danger with it, but if there is a War and I didn’t stop it, he would hate me, personally, forever.  And I would completely agree with that.”

Trimmau lifts the tray and heads for the door.

“Trim?”  Reines asks, still staring at the ceiling.  From the corner of her eye she can see the maid pause and turn back to her.  She takes a bracing breath and asks quietly, “Would you think badly of me if I got involved in this?”

She wills herself to look at her maid for the answer.  Trimmau holds up the tray in her right hand and shakes her head; she then passes it to her left hand and repeats the gesture.  Reines smiles as she takes the maid’s meaning:  no matter which conclusion she comes to, Trimmau will think no differently of her.  Reines finds this immeasurably comforting.  The maid golem had begun to display a fierce independent streak in the past few years in the face of her initial programming for loyalty, and there are times when Reines privately fears that Trimmau might one day decide that she is dissatisfied with her position or with Reines herself.  Her indifference to such a decision as this is an unexpected consolation.

_That does it, then._

“Thank you, Trim.  I’ll be home in time for dinner.”

The maid executes a shallow bow at the door and leaves her mistress with only the sound of the rain for company.  Reines takes her time putting everything back into the hidden drawer and locking it up, taking care to leave the important materials on top for future reference.  Once her desk is clear, she opens her laptop and begins to search through her contacts.

She is not home in time for dinner.  She is several hours late and spends all of dinner and indeed the remaining hours in the day with her research.

After dinner and profuse apologies to Trimmau, Reines holes herself up in her study.  Clad in her favorite dressing gown and armed with a notepad, several pens, and her laptop, she drags the overstuffed armchair to the window and settles down into it to continue her quest for information.

Involvement in a Grail War is a tricky thing, she comes to realize, and even more so when one is not involvement in the establishment of the affair.  Without access to the list of participants, getting anyone in will be a tight squeeze.

The first thing she will need is a profile.  “If this nonsense is happening, we wouldn’t be in it to win.”  Reines explains to Trimmau as the maid enters her study.  Trimmau comes bearing a late-night snack – a tray loaded with fresh-baked cookies and a mug of something that smells delicious and turns out to be hot chocolate – and stands by with her usual saintly patience while Reines rambles.

“I want to know how the setup keeps happening so that I can shut it down, and that means that I need people who are skilled in infiltration and investigation.  They can’t be anyone who was involved in previous Wars; that bears with it too much potential for the desire for revenge or closure.  No, this has to be someone who is new to the Wars but whom I can trust.  That part will be difficult.”

Trimmau shuffles over to the desk and begins rummaging through papers.  Reines gets through another few words before pausing to watch her.  But Trimmau still says nothing, only pulling out a relatively clear piece of paper and a clipboard and shuffling back over to plop down onto the floor next to Reines.  She takes up one of the pens on the side table and silently jots something down, then looks up at her mistress, waiting for her to continue.

After a moment of stunned silence, Reines admits, “I didn’t know you could write.  When did you learn?”

Trimmau shrugs.

Reines feels an amused smile tug at her mouth.  With nothing else to do, she continues talking.  “The other trick is going to be timing.  We don’t know when the War is starting for certain.  If we try to summon too late, we won’t be able to properly connect to the Grail system.  Summon too early and the Servant vessels won’t be present.  The summoning will fizzle – at best.  At worst… Well, we had better hope that whatever Spirit gets summoned is actually a hero and therefore not prone to eating the unfortunate soul who managed to call them.”

Trimmau hums in what Reines chooses to construe as understanding.  She writes something else and then nods.

They keep on like this late into the night, with Reines talking and Trimmau taking brief notes.  Even so often the maid golem rises and retrieves more hot chocolate or a reference book from Reines’ extensive shelves.  It is well past midnight when Trimmau finally – albeit still silently – convinces Reines to head to bed.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! This hasn't been betaed, so it's probably a little rocky. Keep an eye out for more!


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